


Untitled

by OhTheInzaynity



Category: Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: F/F, I started this but never finished it, M/M, WIP, being human AU, maybe posting will temporarily bring me inspiration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:59:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6666784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTheInzaynity/pseuds/OhTheInzaynity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I originally started writing this for the 2015 Big Bang but I lost my momentum and pulled out of the challenge. I don't know if I'll be continuing it. This is an AU based off of Being Human, I haven't finished this. As of the time of posting, Louis has not even been introduced into the story. It was meant to be a slow burn and the first two chapters are leading up to Zayn meeting Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They say before you die that your life flashes before your eyes. That couldn’t have been true because Zayn didn’t recall that. He didn’t remember seeing his life being played in fast forward from a rewound position. There wasn’t any white light. No pearly gates of Heaven. No angels there to guide him home. 

In fact, he didn’t remember dying. He didn’t remember how he died. Or when he died. Zayn just remembered waking up and there being people in his house. People he knew very well, all with sad looks on their faces and wearing dull clothing. Many of the people congregated in the house would never wear dull clothing, preferring decorative stitches of gold or silver in fabrics rich in colour. That was one of the first clues that something was wrong.

He saw his mother, his father, and his three sisters standing about. Safaa was being held by Doniya as Waliyha held their mother’s hand tightly in between hers. Their father had an arm around his wife and was grim faced, it was a look that Zayn couldn’t remember ever seeing on his father’s face before. 

Directly across from them was Aiden, Zayn’s long term partner whom he had been engaged to. Aiden was dressed in a black pair of trousers and a black button-down. He wore a matching look of sadness as he spoke to the Malik family.

Zayn walked over to his family and grabbed at his mother’s sleeve. “Mum, what’s wrong?” He asked but there was no answer given to him. “Mum?” He tried again, voice louder. Again, there was no answer given to him by Trisha who had tears in her eyes, face free of makeup which showed how stressed she had been by the news. She had fine lines etched into her forehead and around her eyes, which were red rimmed and puffy, just as his other family members were. 

“Dad? What’s going on?” He tried but, Yaser didn’t seem to hear him either. He turned to his sisters and snapped his fingers in front of their faces, none of them so much as blinked at him, there was no sign that they could see or hear him. 

Panic started to seep in and Zayn gave a shuddery breath as he shook his head. “This isn’t funny!” He shouted and yet not a single person in the home looked his way. Not one single member of his family, which included his many aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

No one can hear you scream.

He swallowed thickly as he ran from the room, which had been the sitting room, and made a sharp turn towards the corridor. He passed a lamp on his way, which flickered when he went past it. No one seemed to notice the disturbance. He went up the stairs in a flourish and in his panic hadn’t noticed the door to the bedroom upstairs was closed and locked. 

One second he was heading for a crash collision with the door, the next moment he was inside the bedroom and staring at the familiar space, there were clothes strewn about, the bed was unkempt and the shades were drawn. Only the light from the closet illuminated the room. 

“No, no, no. This is a dream, Zayn. Wake up.” He said to himself and pinched himself. 

Nothing happened, the room didn’t change, the voices from downstairs, all quiet but loud enough mixed together, spread through the house and he didn’t get away from it. He finally realised what was being said.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Aiden, we’re sorry you never got to make him your husband.”

“The loss of a child is something no parent should ever have to endure. We’re so sorry Patricia.”

The words didn’t make sense to him, it made his head hurt, the room was spinning and it sent a dizzy sensation through him. He felt physically sick to his stomach.

What was going on?

He couldn’t have been dead because he was right there. He was right there and no one saw him. No one heard him. How was that even possible? 

It couldn’t have been because when you died, you died, there wasn’t an afterlife. There couldn’t have been. Otherwise it would have been common knowledge after all this time. There would be ghosts everywhere and surely someone would have figured that out and proven it to be real but all the ghost hunter shows were fake.

There was no concrete evidence to prove the existence of ghosts and he wasn’t dead. This was just a dream. This was his subconscious saying that he felt invisible. That he wasn’t confident. That he needed to reach out and speak up.

Yet, that didn’t explain phasing through the door as if it wasn’t there, as if it were an illusion. That couldn’t happen. Except for in a dream. But, when you thought you were dreaming, you usually woke up and nothing had changed. The chatter downstairs hadn’t ended and he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

Zayn listened closely, heard the footfalls coming closer and closer and seem to stop at the door. When the door opened, there was an exhausted looking Aiden, brown hair disheveled and brown eyes rimmed red. In all his time living with, and dating, Aiden, his fiancé had never grown out his beard yet this Aiden had stubble that was at least three days old. It caught Zayn off guard to see his lover like that and he stepped towards Aiden. 

“Love?” He asked, hoping that Aiden would reply to him, confirm that he was dreaming. Give him something to cling onto to let himself know that the dream was over and he was waking up. “Aiden, love?” He repeated though as Aiden paid him no attention and the older boy walked into the room, straight through Zayn as if he were made of air. 

A horrible sinking feeling in his heart only made him begin to consider that this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a figment of his imagination and he really was dead. He really was a ghost. He ran back down the stairs, trying to get someone’s attention and when he passed by the lamp he’d made flicker earlier, the light went brighter before the bulb burst and it startled everyone at the mourner’s home. 

Zayn sat down on the coffee table, head in his hands as he watched and listened to the people around him talk and the night dragged on. Slowly, friends and family began to filter out of the house. 

Safaa was fast asleep on her mother’s lap, stretched across the couch as the last of the non-family members left. Zayn watched as Doniya paced and Waliyha sat still as a statue. Yaser turned to Trisha and decided it was time for their family to go home. Trisha gently woke her youngest child up and the five Maliks called up to Aiden saying that they were going home.

Once everyone was gone, the house was quiet, eerily quiet.


	2. Chapter 2

The days following his awakening as a ghost, Zayn saw his family daily. For two weeks, his family came by with dishes cooked and Aiden would welcome them. Zayn watched as his parents ate in silence, his sisters all with sad looks on their faces. Their dinners were awkward. Slowly, they stopped coming. It started off with dinners daily, then three times a week for the following three weeks. Five weeks after his death, his family members stopped coming by the house. 

During those weeks, his mother would often go upstairs with boxes and begin packing up Zayn’s belongings. Trisha would cry as she packed up shirts she’d given Zayn for birthdays, packed up his good clothes for Eid, and she’d have to take a break after just a few minutes. His sisters would often help her pack up his stuff and by that fifth week, they had done all his clothes, his little knick knacks and whatnots were wrapped in old newspaper pages and a picture of Doniya, Zayn, and a baby Waliyha had been broken. Trisha had been looking at the picture and her hands had been trembling. The picture frame had fallen out of her hands and she sobbed. Zayn had tried to comfort his mother, his arms had wrapped around her and she shivered and moved out of his embrace. 

After his belongings were packed, the Maliks had said goodbye to Aiden with promises to keep in touch which wouldn’t be followed through with. There were mixed feelings, Trisha thought things were strange with Aiden. That something wasn’t lining up properly but, she hadn’t told anyone about her feelings. 

After his things were out of the house, Aiden began boxing his own things up which had Zayn confused for a bit but, he figured that since he’d died there, Aiden didn’t want to live in a place where his fiancé had died and he supposed that he’d do the same if he had been in that sort of situation. 

After their personal belongings -save for furniture and fixtures- had been removed, Zayn noticed that Aiden had taken pictures and had placed up an advertisement for the house online, saying it was for rent and would come fully furnished, only needing bedding and to pay rent and utilities. 

The idea of someone else living in his house was off putting and he was undeniably frustrated by it. His eyes narrowed in disdain at the older man’s laptop and he sulked at the fact that their bed, their sofa, their tables, their lamps, their silverware, and everything save for their clothing was being left there for the new renters. 

The first response came from a young woman from South Shields who said that she was excited to see the house and asked what the rent would be and if it was a month-by-month lease or a yearly one. The young woman was a blonde with bright blue eyes and she came to check out the house just a few days after the inquiry. 

The woman, whom he found out was named Perrie Edwards had come with her girlfriend, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and the two women had began to look around. Zayn was curious and watched them the entire time that they were passing through the rooms, overhearing Leigh-Anne talk about how charming the house was and how she loved the picture window seat. 

The view of the back garden in summer from that seat was always Zayn’s favourite. He kept silent, not that anyone would have heard him, as the women fell in love with the house, much the way he had a year and a half ago when he and Aiden had purchased the home. There were intricately carved mouldings along the floorboards and the ceilings that as an artist, Zayn had fallen for. They had moved into an all white house and Zayn had personally painted each room, the kitchen was a pale yellow, bright and sunny without being an eyesore. The appliances were all stainless steel, and the door to the back garden and the window trimmings were white, as were the tiles along the floor and the ceiling. The sitting room was left white, with paintings that Zayn had either painted himself or purchased lining the walls in just the right places. The bedroom was an off white with just the lightest hint of a blue undertone to it. There was a king sized bed and a walk in closet that was large enough that he and Aiden hadn’t had to fight for space for their clothes. There was even a built in shoe rack that Aiden had built so they could keep everything organized. The master bathroom was large and spacious, in one corner there was a shower, off to the side there was a large tub where he and Aiden would often soak and just talk about their days. Beside the tub was a large stained glass mandala window, it was beautiful when the sun streamed in. There were two sinks, his-and-hers, or in this case it had been his-and-his and would become hers-and-hers when Aiden rented out their home to these women.

The rent was £1,700 a month from what Zayn overheard when Aiden was talking to Perrie about the four bedroom house. He didn’t know how he felt about the fact their belongings were gone and Aiden was moving out. Was letting strangers move in. He didn’t like the fact that these women were moving in and would be making memories while all evidence of his life there had been erased.


End file.
